and he would wait for her
by InsanityRunsInMyBlood
Summary: Can be read after 'remembrance of mortality'. Modern 2014 setting- Morgana finds Merlin again, but their reunion was nothing like he imagined it would be.


**Third instalment, and I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.**

* * *

It is strange to be sitting in a café in modern 2014, watching the world spin around him, having forgotten about the glory days of Albion.

He sipped his drink, his stormy blue eyes looked so weary and tired. He had been searching…searching…after World War II, none of them showed up even once, and he was tired. He knew it was irrational to be angry that they hadn't returned when he has waited for so long—he could wait a few more years. Seven decades was nothing compared to the wait he had to endure for the first time.

Over the ages, he had seen great kings and queens come and go, and every time he would remember Camelot, its Great Hall, and Arthur and Gwen smiling at the Knights of the Round Table.

Nobody would ever measure up to Arthur's golden age. He had brought magic back to the land, and it had flourished until the Triple Goddess exacted her revenge on Camelot and its surrounding lands for killing her last High Priestess. Kilgharrah had suffered immensely under the dictation of the Disir, eventually leaving Merlin as Dragonlord to the last dragon on the earth—Aithusa.

The last time he visited Aithusa was when Morgana died again during the second war. Despite him being her Dragonlord, she still seemed reluctant to communicate with him, which is understandable but frustrating.

He had not seen the dragon since.

Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as the guilt hit him with the rage and force of a hurricane. He wiped them furiously, scowling when some girls looked over curiously and giggled.

_They know nothing_, he thought bitterly. What kind of decent human beings laughed at a stranger crying?

He downed his drink and stood, mustering his coldest glare that he sent over to the teenagers sitting in a huddle. They shrank back as he swept past, allowing his magic to seep into the air around him, giving him an aura of danger.

He hopped into his car and started the engine, driving into his home in the countryside. It lay in the middle of a dense forest, in a clearing he had made. It reminded him of Ealdor, and the simplicity of his life made him imagine his mother Hunith next to him. Sometimes if he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he could hear the poultry making a racket and the laughter of children running around. He could hear his mother preparing dinner, and he could hear Will calling his name.

It pained him so, to know that he could never get that back.

He parked his car haphazardly and stepped out. As the locks clicked, he could hear a disturbance above his head. It sounded like…hooves.

For a moment, he imagined Arthur riding to him with all of this Knights, and he looked up, hope in his eyes.

The visitor, however, was better than even Arthur.

She looked no different to how she did when he first met her, with her wavy hair cascading down her back and curling over her shoulders. It was like he was in Camelot, watching her ride back from a day's hunting trip with Arthur, and he did not question why she arrived on horseback when there were other more pressing matters to attend to.

"Morgana!" He exclaimed hoarsely, the keys slipping out of his hand.

The dark-haired woman dismounted gracefully, looking out of place in her oversized hoodie, jeans, and trainers.

"How…did you find me?" He asked, stumbling forward as if in a trance. He couldn't believe it. She was here, alive, and she looked as beautiful as ever.

"Aithusa," was her curt response. Her tone alone should have warned him that she wasn't here for a friendly visit, but he just blindly engulfed her in a hug, throat hitching. She felt stiff in his arms, and he just cried silently, revelling in her warmth and solidity, reassuring him that she was not just a cruel vision conjured to taunt him.

When he broke away, her eyes were as cold as ice chips.

"I hate you." She said spitefully, in a voice devoid of any heat her body seemed to radiate, and those three words sent Merlin reeling.

He shook his head, trying desperately to clear it.

She _remembered_.

"Morgana, _please_. I didn't want to kill you…I—I…" He stopped at the sudden flash of pain in her eyes. Everything he wanted to say to her since her death fled him like the Druids from Camelot, and he was left speechless, his brain empty and unable to come up with anything.

"It hurt, you know." She continued as if he hadn't spoken, her lips twisted in both a grimace and snarl, and he could suddenly see the vengeful High Priestess in her, face set in harsh lines of betrayal and grief. "Not just physically."

Each word was like a blow straight to his core, and he could only stand numbly as he watched the horse flee as Aithusa swooped down.

It was the second time he had seen her after Morgana died in her most recent past life.

She looked wiser, more graceful, and happier than he had ever seen her.

Morgana cracked a smile at her female companion, and the dagger she drove into his heart twisted, bleeding it dry.

"Aithusa…" She murmured, stroking the dragon's snout. Merlin took a step forward, but Aithusa shook her large head. Morgana clambered onto Aithusa's neck and held her tightly, kissing her smooth scales. She looked straight at him, her eyes somehow softer and filled with a lingering regret.

"I came here to say goodbye, Merlin." She said quietly, and his final words to her flashed through his mind.

She was here to return his words, nearly two millennia later.

Without further ado, she urged Aithusa to climb into the brilliant sky, and the tears just kept on flowing.

_Give her time, my Dragonlord,_ Aithusa's cool feminine voice spoke in his mind gently, _she loves you, but she denies it…there is too much bad blood between you and her, and she is a strong but fragile being. When the time is right, you will find her again. Remember, just as your destiny is entwined with Arthurs, it is your inescapable fate to be bound to Morgana._

Merlin watched them climb further into the clouds, numb from the agony assaulting his every sense.

_Have faith; _her voice echoed from the heavens, _she will wait for you like you have waited for her. After all she does not leave a debt unfulfilled. _

How true it was, as she returned his last blow with something just as devastating.

He believed this was how she felt when he had ended her life.

Finally, he was repenting for his actions.

"Until then." He promised.

And this time, he would keep it.


End file.
